The prevailing economic climate has given rise to concerns for us all, especially co-op and condo boards currently in the process of budget preparation. The natural course of action would seem to be to review past budget-related decisions a…
As the future of the economy remains questionable, the matter of your building’s finances begs the question: Should your co-op or condo board reexamine how you invest your reserve fund? No doubt, this has already crossed your mind, but even…
When Irwin Cohen, president of Manhattan’s A. Michael Tyler Realty came on board in 1997 to manage a ten-unit co-op on the Upper East Side, the building was on the verge of bankruptcy. In addition to depleting their reserve fund to pay for …
Here in New York, where real estate values have risen to unprecedented levels, limited equity co-ops created under the Mitchell-Lama program are presented with the choice of either embracing their own dizzying market value by removing the r…
The well-known business guru Peter Drucker once said, "Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions." This is the basic philosophy professional financial planners use in guiding their …
If someone were to tell you that as a New York co-op or condominium owner you may be throwing away up to $1,000 a year on unnecessary taxes, you’d probably be pretty indignant, right? No matter who you are or what you do, a thousand bucks i…
Alan Greenspan and the Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve have received a lot of press coverage recently for their aggressive attempts to revive the economy and ward off a recession. Their unprecedented program of mostly half-poin…
With mortgages as common as they are today, most borrowers know the standard steps in securing a loan for a condo or co-op. In the simplest terms, a borrower must first pick a lending institution, be it a commercial bank or mortgage banker.…
The economic boom of the last few years has been a remarkable period of prosperity for the real estate industry in general, and co-ops in particular. Shareholders no longer need to feel trapped; the time is now for co-op boards to tackle th…
Out of concern over escalating property taxes, The Action Committee for Reasonable Real Estate Taxes was formed in 1990. Created by The Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums (CNYC), the committee uncovered a gross disparity betw…